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Taiwan | Part 1

In June, Taiwan's weather was almost comparable to Singapore's. Sweltering heat, stifling humidity.

Lovely cotton-candy clouds drifted below the wings of our plane.

Right after we landed at Taoyuan International Airport, we headed to Shihlin Night Market for dinner. What better way to kickstart a holiday in Taiwan than to visit one of their most well-known night markets?

One of the must-trys at Shihlin would be their Hot Star Crispy Chicken going at 70 NTD. This is when we relegate the calorie-counting to the back of our minds.

A piece of their chicken is literally bigger than my face! To save some tummy-space for the 101 more street food that we're going to have later on, I shared this with my siblings.

Authentic Taiwan Bubble Milk Tea in a humongous cup. This is so much cheaper than those that we buy from Gongcha or Koi in Singapore.

As we continued walking, we saw many similar game stalls with prizes lined up behind the counters. Competition is tough for there will be a stall at the corner of every other street.

Queues for this particular stall was very long. As typical kiasu Singaporeans, we joined the queue. 大肠包小肠 is basically pork sausage wrapped in glutinous rice. I thought it was pretty decent-tasting, but it wasn't impressionable enough to warrant a second try, at least not anytime during this trip.

Right beside the previous stall was a roadside stall selling mee sua at 30NTD for a small bowl. It was budget yet tasty. I absolutely love the thick and flavourful broth. One unique point about Taiwan's mee sua is that they add pork intestines to their broth, which enhances the flavour somehow.

Thankfully they had a mini corner with tables and stools for patrons to dine at. Finally it's time to rest our aching feet.

As I had prepared a list of recommended foods to try on our visit, I was busy striking them off the list with every single purchase. This time, it was cheesy potato with ham. For 50NTD, you get a deep fried potato drenched in a generous serving of nachos cheese, topped with ham, pineapples and corn. The first few bites were decent, but after a while, the sweetness of the cheese and mushiness of the potato kind of put me off.

We wandered around some more and bought some fried ice cream. YES, I KID YOU NOT. They had legit fried ice cream - deep frozen ice cream (vanilla, chocolate or strawberry - I preferred the strawberry-flavoured one) in a deep fried pastry puff. The lighting was too dark to take decent photos though.

I was pleasantly surprised at how the crunchy piping hot exterior and freezing cold core managed to come together so perfectly to create the most delicious dessert ever. That juxtaposition!

When you're tired and sweaty from walking around outdoors, you can always head underground to their basement food street for supper.

We ordered a set of stinky tofu at 45NTD and oyster omelette at 60NTD.

The "stench" was so mild as compared to what I've had in China. Needless to say, it failed to impress. While it looked pretty in photos, what with the golden brown crisp, fillings and colourful toppings, it didn't pack much of a punch. I guess if you're not used to the strong taste of authentic stinky tofu, then Taiwan's version would be more suitable for you.

I thought that it was rather bland, and I had to pour loads of chilli to bump up the flavour.

Their oyster omelette is totally different from Singapore's Orh Luah. Their omelette is more "egg-y"and the sauce drizzled over the omelette was sweet. It was an interesting take on oyster omelette but I would stick to the Singaporean version, thank you very much.

Anyway, we were bloated by the end of our Shihlin exploration so that concludes our first day in Taiwan!